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5 Popular Weight Loss Shortcuts That Never Work

Unfortunately, we live in a very lazy society where products, tips and tricks are constantly being praised for their shortcut weight loss abilities. It may be a new diet plan, like the grapefruit diet that has spiked and flagged in popularity every few years. Starvation diets are also practiced frequently, if unintelligently so.

Blushing brides trying to trim down their weight by 10 or 20 pounds with their big day only weeks away often eat next to nothing in an attempt to squeeze into their wedding dress. There are all kinds of fitness shortcuts that have mysteriously survived for decades. They guarantee you can be lazy, eat food that is bad for you, never exercise and still lose weight.

If the warning bells go off in your head every time you hear some weight loss shortcut that seems “too good to be true”, then good for you. Some weight loss shortcuts actually do trim off a few pounds initially. But they are so far removed from sensible nutrition and fitness that they can cause dangerous and even deadly side effects.

And in almost every case, the weight loss hopeful falling prey to the unsuccessful shortcut actually gains more weight instead of losing it. Steer clear of the following unsuccessful and unhealthy weight loss shortcuts that never work. Stick instead to a healthy, happy lifestyle of proper nutrition and physical activity and you will always regulate a healthy body weight.

1) Starvation

This has to be the most dangerous weight loss shortcut that is also unfortunately the most common. Food is fuel for your body to grow and operate in a naturally healthy way. Eliminating that food is not going to cause you to lose weight, unless you simply stop eating for months. Then you wither up and die.

Think about this for a second. Your vehicle requires fuel to run. It also needs oil, transmission fluid and other liquids and fluids to work properly. Would you ever consider removing all of the oils and fuel out of your vehicle and then try to use it normally? Of course not. Because you know that aside from your car or truck not running, it would eventually break down from a blown engine.

That is exactly the same result you are going to get if you starve your body. It will stop working properly. You will lose all of your energy. Mental disorders, skin conditions, heart problems, issues with your digestive system and literally dozens of other health problems will begin to appear. The first couple of days of a starvation diet, you may see a loss of a few pounds.

But because of the way your body is made, when your brain recognizes that you are in starvation mode it begins to store fat. That is why diets that limit your food drastically never work, and usually end up making you gain weight. Your body craves enzymes, minerals and nutrients and you can begin overeating. This is because your body craves the calories and carbohydrates it has been missing, and you end up adding weight that leaves you heavier than when you started. Starvation just doesn’t make sense for any number of reasons.

2) Using Laxatives As a Weight Loss Method

The idea here is that laxatives help cleanse your body. There is a shortcut method in the weight loss marketplace that, because of the cleansing nature of laxatives, says they can be used to also remove carbohydrates and excess calories from your body. It might even sound sensible at first.

But when you take a closer look at the science behind how laxatives work, you understand the problem. Your body assimilates calories very rapidly when you eat. They hit your bloodstream soon after swallowing. By the time any laxatives take effect, your calories are already going to work naturally. Besides, laxatives only take water weight out of your body.

This method can make you extremely dehydrated, leading to dizziness, hallucinations, renal failure and even irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). You may actually lose weight, dropping a few pounds quickly. But this is an extremely unhealthy shortcut that will not allow you to keep the weight off over time. Besides, your body will begin craving the water you have denied it, and you will need to replace it anyway, along with its accompanying weight.

3) Pills and Supplements Without Exercise

There are some really healthy natural supplements, powders and pills that can help you lose weight and keep it off. Unfortunately, for every healthy supplemental weight loss alternative, there are dozens of ineffective and even dangerous options. All of the smart and sensible pills and supplements that can aid in weight loss and regulation are meant to be taken as part of a healthy nutrition plan with sensible physical activity and exercise.

The problem here is that we live in a “right now” world. People are lazy. Even if something is simple to do, such as the recommended 3 to 5 sessions each week with just 20 minutes of physical activity, it is often times easier not to do. Couple that human inclination towards laziness with mythical shortcuts that you heard about from your best friend’s, neighbors’, boss’ physical trainer, and you can have a recipe for disaster.

Most of the fitness supplements that boast weight loss claims of 20 and 30 pounds in 30 days or less are loaded full of caffeine. In some cases the chemical equivalent of “speed” is also present. Your metabolism rate is jacked up to an unhealthy level, and so is your heart rate. Any supplement, powder or pill that claims to burn off fat and weight without any physically active effort on your part should be avoided at all costs.

4) Intentionally Skipping Meals

You can call this intermittent starvation if you like. When the calorie counting craze exploded in the 1970s, every man, woman and child seemed to know exactly what their target calorie rate was every day. You were told that if you go over that number, you will gain fat and weight. Therefore it only made relative sense that if you ate fewer calories, you would gain less weight, and probably even lose weight and fat.

Since very few of us want to stop eating entirely, some began skipping meals as a part of a weight loss shortcut. This doesn’t work for the same reason that starvation doesn’t. Your body needs nutrients, minerals, vitamins, enzymes, calories, carbohydrates and healthy fats to function properly. It doesn’t need them all at once, but rather on a consistent delivery throughout the day.

The Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry released research showing what a lot of nutritionists already knew. Skipping meals actually increases belly fat. In many cases this is because your insulin levels are out of whack, and you begin making and storing fat when you don’t get a steady, consistent supply of food each day.

Another reason this doesn’t work has to do with your metabolism. Every time you eat, your metabolic rate increases. This means you burn more energy than when you aren’t eating. So when you spread your calories across 5 or 6 meals and snacks each day, you crank up your calorie burning process and regulate a healthy body weight naturally. Stop skipping meals; it just makes you hungry so when you do eat you might end up consuming too many calories.

5) Switching to 100% No Fat Foods

For the umpteenth time, your body needs fat to function properly. Of course, it needs to be good fat, found in olive oil, coconut oil, walnuts, almonds and fish like mackerel and salmon. Saturated and trans fats are certainly not needed in your body, but when you attempt to eat nothing but fat free-foods, you send the wrong message to your brain.

When humans were evolving, they did not always have the opportunity to eat every day. When they did, they ate as much as possible and their bodies stored excess fat away for those periods of time when no food was on the schedule. Your body works the same way. When your brain sees that you are not taking in any fat, it begins converting things like sugar to fat and hording it.

Eating an entirely fat-free diet is almost a guaranteed way to cause multiple health problems, as well as pack on a few extra pounds. That is because when you see the phrases “fat-free” or “100% no fat” something has been added for flavor when that fat was removed.

This is usually tons of unhealthy sugar or chemical sweeteners made in a laboratory. They immediately turn to fat in your body, which is why you see people drinking fat-free diet drinks and sports drinks for years, and yet they are still incapable of losing weight, actually gaining it in most cases.

Fortunately, there is one weight loss shortcut that will naturally drop your weight until you reach your personal, healthy weight. And the thing is, it delivers tons of energy, a lean, muscular and toned body, your brain works better than ever before, and you find yourself happy, successful and productive in every area of your life.

Want to know what it is, this miracle shortcut for weight loss and so many health benefits?

It’s simple, stop putting garbage into your body. Everybody knows by now that fast food, simple carbohydrates, processed food, refined sugar and salt are killers. You also know that fruits, vegetables and whole grains make for a super healthy body, which automatically and effortlessly regulates your perfect body weight.

In recent years, scientists have discovered that 60% to 70% of your level of physical fitness is determined entirely by your diet. That is why you may have been working out like a fanatic, and still not realizing your weight loss goals. You are simply eating the wrong things. Start eating smart, get physically active whenever you can, and steer clear of the 5 dangerous and ineffective weight loss shortcuts listed above in every situation.

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